10
A FUNERAL AND AN INDICTMENT
Santa Barbara had always been perceived as an upscale community spared violent crime, but when the first news articles of the kidnapping and murder made their way into the newspapers, it was like a bombshell exploding in the seaside town. Under the headline ANATOMY OF A KIDNAPPING, the Santa Barbara News-Press stated: During the two days that fifteen-year-old Nicholas Markowitz was held in Santa Barbara before being killed by his kidnappers in early August, more than two dozen people learned of his plight and yet did not call police. The article went on to relate that Hoyt, Pressley, Rugge and Skidmore had all entered not guilty pleas, and that Jesse James Hollywood was on the run and the subject of a nationwide manhunt.
The article stated that a host of young people, Jesse Hollywood’s father, a friend and a lawyer had all heard parts of what was going on before Nick was murdered, and yet none of them had contacted authorities. Prosecutors called the abduction “a continuous ongoing sort of party with an edge,” where friends of the kidnappers dropped in to smoke dope and take Valium.
The article also related that Nick had first been taken to a home on Modoc Road, where Richard Hoeflinger and another young man lived. Hoeflinger knew that something was wrong, but he stated, “I didn’t want to get involved. I did not want to know what was going on.”
Citing further evidence, newspapers reported that Gabriel Ibarra had been at Hoeflinger’s house and had seen Nick with duct tape on his arms and legs. Supposedly, Jesse Hollywood had threatened Ibarra if he ever told anyone. Of this threatening nature of Jesse Hollywood, DDA Ron Zonen said, “He has a kind of aura about him where he just walks in and the whole atmosphere chills.”
Articles told of Nick being taken to the home of Jesse Rugge’s father, and being allowed to walk around freely there, as well as at Rugge’s girlfriend’s house. By this phrase they probably meant Natasha Adams’s home. It was there that Natasha and Kelly Carpenter had cleaned Nick’s wounds and first learned of his abduction. One of the young women there even told a detective later, “The atmosphere was mostly light and fun,” but she started to have second thoughts about the atmosphere by the second day.
It came out in a report that when Natasha Adams found out what the consequences could be, she confronted Nick about his situation and said, “I asked Nick if they were going to kill him. And he said, ‘Oh, no, of course not.’” Yet, around this same time, she heard that Jesse Rugge had already been offered $2,500 to murder Nick, an offer that Rugge refused. Nonetheless, Natasha said, both Rugge and Pressley were afraid of Jesse James Hollywood.
Natasha told authorities, and this got into the newspaper, that she had confronted Rugge and told him to take Nick back home before something terrible happened. According to the report: “Rugge looked me in the eye and he swore to me that he was going to take Nick home, and he said it a number of times that afternoon.”
Ben Markowitz had also spoken to detectives, and it was reported that he said: “Up until what happened, as far as I was concerned, they (Jesse Hollywood’s buddies) were a bunch of punks that couldn’t fight worth a lick. I never seen them doing anything like I heard what they did.”
Articles reported that Nick’s body had been found lying facedown in a shallow grave—bound, gagged and shot nine times. By the time a grand jury was being empaneled, prosecutors already had surmised the reason Jesse James Hollywood had ordered Nick Markowitz killed. Ron Zonen stated to reporters, “It appears that Jesse Hollywood consulted with an attorney and possibly learned what the penalty was for kidnapping, particularly kidnapping and extortion. Hollywood became spooked by it, and the decision was made that they weren’t going to return Nick, but rather they would kill him.”
Also talking to authorities was Casey Sheehan, and he said that on Wednesday afternoon, August 9, after the murder had occurred, Jesse James Hollywood, Michelle Lasher, Will Skidmore and Ryan Hoyt had come to his house. Supposedly, at that time Hoyt had told Sheehan that he had “taken care of a problem” with Nick Markowitz. When Sheehan asked what the problem was, Hoyt had told him, “It’s best you don’t know.”
An indictment was in the early stages of being drawn up concerning Jesse James Hollywood, Ryan James Hoyt, William Robert Skidmore, Jesse Taylor Rugge and Graham William Pressley. The first paragraph stated that the above named were accused by the grand jury of the County of Santa Barbara of the crimes of Murder and Kidnapping for purposes of ransom or extortion. As far as the murder went, Count 1 of the indictment stated that the perpetrators had with malice murdered Nicholas Samuel Markowitz, with special circumstances of the murder taking place during the commission of kidnapping. Special Allegation 1 alleged that a TEC-9 handgun had been discharged by Ryan Hoyt, which caused the death of Nicholas Markowitz. Special Allegation 2 stated that the others, with Ryan Hoyt, had been in league with Ryan Hoyt when he murdered Nick. Special Allegation 3 said that Graham Pressley was over the age of fourteen and committed an offense which if committed by an adult would be punishable by death or imprisonment in a state prison for life.
Count 2 dealt with kidnapping for purposes of ransom or extortion. It related that the conspirators forcibly detained Nick for the purpose of ransom and extortion of money from him. (In effect, he was being held as ransom to make his brother pay a debt.) Special Allegation 1 of this count stated that Nick had suffered death while in the commission of the kidnapping.
The newspapers, by now, were also giving a more in-depth look into the world that Jesse James Hollywood and his friends had inhabited. The Santa Barbara News-Press called it a “suburban underworld,” and related, Ryan Hoyt arrived at the home of Jesse James Hollywood every morning at 10 AM. He would pick up the beer cans strewn around from parties the night before. Then he would go outside to clean up the backyard. The twenty-year-old Hoyt behaved like a modern-day indentured servant to pay off a $1,200 drug debt that he owed Hollywood.
Even as the investigation into Nick’s death and the hunt for Jesse James Hollywood continued, Nick Markowitz was laid to rest at Eden Memorial Park in Mission Hills. It was a bright sunny day, in contrast to the somber mood that engulfed hundreds of mourners, including Nick’s parents, Jeff and Susan. At least three hundred people packed the memorial service, half of them teenagers who had known Nick.
Rabbi James Lee Kaufman told the gathering, “There are deaths such as this when we can’t shake an angry finger at God and say, ‘Why?’ We can only look to ourselves.” Some of Nick’s friends also spoke, including sixteen-year-old Zach Winters, who said, “You were always a call away when I needed you. Things aren’t going to be the same without you. All I can say is, I love you, man. We’ll always be friends for life.”
After the memorial service six young pallbearers carried Nick’s casket up a grassy slope to the grave site. Three of the pallbearers were openly weeping. One of Nick’s friends said later, “He always made me laugh. Even when I was mad at him, I couldn’t stay mad for long.”
Another friend added, “You wake up and realize all the drug dealing has to stop.”
One person who did not attend the memorial service and funeral was Ben Markowitz, out of respect for Susan. He told a reporter for KNBC that if he showed up, he wouldn’t have blamed Susan if she wringed his neck. Then he added, “I wish I was the one who was gone. I can’t even fathom anyone doing that to him, especially people that I grew up with, laughed with and cried with. I mean, these were my friends.”
Even before the funeral, Jeff and Susan Markowitz had created a candlelight memorial in their front yard. They had set up large photographs on poster boards with photos of Nick during various stages of his life. They also made a short comment to the public: “Nick was a very smart, charismatic, compassionate person. He loved nothing more than participating in activities such as drama and karate. He loved drawing and video games. Nicholas Samuel Markowitz’s memory will be in the hearts of his immediate family.”
Adding to the theme of disbelief, which pervaded the community of West Hills, was an individual named Ryan, who had played baseball with Jesse James Hollywood on the El Camino Real team. Ryan said, “Jesse was always mellow. It’s weird, because I know the victim, and though I’m not going to lose any sleep over it, I’m not going to ever forget it, either. It will always be in my head. It’s just too weird.”
In fact, Ryan had seen Jesse Hollywood just days before the kidnapping. Ryan recalled, “He was cool as usual. He was always cool with me. He wasn’t like some guy plotting a murder.”
Into the autumn of 2000, attorney Stephen Hogg was fighting the prosecutors’ contention that he was going to have to testify as to what his conversation had been with Jesse Hollywood at his residence. Hogg not only asserted attorney/client privilege, but also asserted the privilege against self-incrimination. To override these contentions, DDA Zonen put together a Motion to Compel document and submitted it to Judge William Gordon, who was presiding over the case. In laying out his Statement of Facts, Zonen wrote that on August 6, 2000, Nick Markowitz had been abducted by Jesse James Hollywood, William Skidmore and Jesse Rugge. After Nick was being held at Rugge’s residence, Hollywood had gone to attorney Stephen Hogg’s residence, sometime on the late afternoon of Tuesday, August 8. Hollywood told Hogg that someone he knew had kidnapped a boy and they were holding him. Hogg, in turn, told Hollywood that such an action could get the kidnappers life in prison. It was after this conversation, Zonen contended, that Jesse Hollywood had hired Ryan Hoyt to kill Nick Markowitz.
It was the conversation between Jesse Hollywood and Chas Saulsbury on the road back from Las Vegas that had tipped authorities off to this Hogg/Hollywood connection, and Zonen emphasized this in his motion. Saulsbury told detectives during testimony that Hollywood mentioned that the attorney’s name was Steve.
Chas Saulsbury, in part, had these things to say about the subject of Jesse and an attorney:
| Q: |
What did he (Hollywood) say about the conversation with the attorney? What did he tell you? |
| A: |
They had grabbed Nick and they were trying to get Nick’s older brother, and in the hopes of finding him, they grabbed his little brother just on a whim on the side of a street, and they took him to somebody’s house. And Jesse called his lawyer, I believe, because of what he told me. Jesse talked to his lawyer to find out implications of the kidnapping and whatnot. At that point, from what he told me, the lawyer said that he was in enough trouble and they should get rid of the kid. |
Zonen stressed to the judge that Code 912 stated, “Attorney/client privilege is waived with respect to a communication protected by such privilege if any holder of the privilege, without coercion, had disclosed a significant part of the communication or has consented to such disclosure made by anyone.” Zonen also cited a case entitled National Steel Products Co. v. Superior Court. The relevant part of that stated, “The privilege is waived even if the conversation is overheard by an unintended but known third party.” Since Jesse Hollywood had willingly told Chas Saulsbury what his conversation between Stephen Hogg and himself had supposedly been, the attorney/client privilege was no longer valid, at least according to Zonen.
The reason Zonen was pushing so hard on all of this was, as he stated, “Hollywood’s conversation with his attorney, Hogg, was the pivotal point of the kidnapping. It was the moment Hollywood decided that Nick Markowitz should be killed, rather than risk a lifetime in prison. It is a statement that not only furthered the conspiracy, but raised it to a higher level—one of murder.”
Trying to tie the name “Steve,” which Chas Saulsbury had mentioned coming from Jesse Hollywood, to Stephen Hogg, Zonen had evidence of things that John Roberts and Jack Hollywood had mentioned as well.
Judge Gordon eventually ruled that Stephen Hogg had to testify before a grand jury, and Hogg told reporters, “I’m not a witness. I’m a lawyer. But as much as I hate it, I follow what the judge says.”
Ron Zonen told a reporter, “As to the conversation Hogg had with Hollywood, we need to know the specifics of that discussion. The information he has could be very important to the prosecution and should not be kept secret until the moment of trial for no better reason than that Mr. Hogg is inconvenienced or embarrassed.”
Because of the comments between Jesse Hollywood and Stephen Hogg, the DA’s office was not content to just prosecute Hoyt, Skidmore, Rugge and Pressley. They also wanted the person they deemed to be the mastermind behind the murder—Jesse James Hollywood. Of course, the first thing they had to do was catch him, and that was easier said than done.